General Assembly

I made the decision to attend General Assembly's UX Design immersive program because I was moving to Boston for personal reasons, and I wanted to take advantage of the transition to do a career 180 degree change. As a former social science academic with a ton of customer service experience, I felt that UX design would be a good fit and that I had a lot of potentially transferable skills, but no training in design, nor any exposure to working in a corporate setting.

General Assembly really helped me make a successful transition into UX design, and the proof is in the pudding: after a 5-month job search, I found a job in UX that I absolutely love, full time with great benefits. My instructor gave her all, and I learned a TON. I have to also give a special shout-out the front lines staff at our campus, who go the extra mile every single day to make our GA experience enjoyable, fun, and full of pleasant surprises.  

While the instructor was excellent and the curriculum took me where I needed to go in terms of a foundation in design thinking and methods, in my mind the real $$$ value of the program is in the Outcomes Support you get after you've finished the coursework. I think that it is more valuable for some than for others, but I was definitely one of the people who benefited immensely from it. The amount of support, advice, and even hand-holding at times that I received from my Outcomes officers was extraordinary, and almost certainly the reason I was able to get the job that I got.  

To be fair, the GA immersive experience is not for everyone, and it requires A TON of work on your part to be successful, both during and after the actual program. It's also pretty expensive, so I recognize that I was extremely priviledged to be there in the first place. But I know that I wouldn't be where I am right now if I hadn't done GA, and I also have a wonderful network of friends and colleagues from the experience, plus a life-long professional community of alums to tap into in the future. 

My advice to anyone considering GA is this: try to talk to a couple of people who have done the program you're interested in *with the instructor you would have.* So much of the success or failure here depends on whether you can jibe with the instructor, with whom you'll spend 9-10+ hours a day for 10-ish weeks. Make sure that the instructor is fully dedicated to helping their students succeed.    

Overall, a poor experience.

The pre-work was useful in getting across the basics, but the none of the actual course work was related to any of the compulsory pre-work.

Much of the interactive practical coding exercises were skipped over as the instructor focused heavily on mathematical theory. While understanding this is important,  it was not tied into the actual coding as well as it could have been, if at all, leaving me confused most of the time.

We were asked to complete mid-course feedback, which was overall not very positive. General Assembly appeared to have delivered this feedback to the instructors immediately before the next class, resulting in a somewhat awkward atmosphere for the remainder of that lesson, which ended an hour early.

There were a few occasions where GA would deliver beers and wine for students... which the instructors also participated in, leading to let's say a very relaxed atmosphere where not much learning took place. There were also issues with course producers leaving GA mid way through the course. This was not communicated very well. I was trying to get in touch with someone to find out about homework, and no one replied to any of my emails, or messages left on the course's slack channel (of which the course producers and instructors were participants). That not even the instructors would respond to a request for information did not sit well with me. 

This course was good for teaching me how to use Stack Overflow and Code Academey - most of my learning took place there as the course provided code in Github was often full of errors that sometimes even the instructors did not know how to fix. In addition to this, the instructor would sometimes not know how to demonstrate code in practice (maybe why they spent so much time on mathematical theory?) so they reverted to teaching us how to do things in R - which was not what we signed up for.

By the end of it, we were unable to submit the final assessments by the course end date, presumably because not enough people had managed to grasp the content due to its delivery. They added an extra two weeks for people to submit their final assessments via google hangout. The rubric for this was updated on the day the course was meant to finish, indicating the goal-posts were constantly changing for students right until the end.

Feedback for assessments was not delivered at all throughout the course. I met with the course producer after the mid way feedback, and was told I should have been getting feedback, but then nothing came of this until after the course ended where I was told I would be getting everything after the final assessment was submitted. Not a good experience.

Another comment about the calibre of training staff... There were two separate instances where I told the instructor I did not understand (so required help). In one instance, the instructor came to try and help me, but walked off without a offering a solution after he was unable to sort out the error message in the practice code. On a second occasion, he just walked away after I indicated I did not understand what we needed to do. (We had spent so much time on theory, I did not know how to code).

I did meet with the course producer after submitting my mid course feedback, and felt my issues had been listened to and addressed, but by the end of it, things just reverted back to how they were beforehand, which was greatly dissapointing. They did offer to call me to talk through my end of course feedback, but I felt this would be a waste of time given how things reverted back to their old ways after the mid course feedback.

Long story short, I would definitely NOT recommend this course to anyone who is looking to learn Python. You are best to do this on a website that offers this course for free, because that is what I ended up having to do anyway. 

GA put together an intensive Data Analytics course that went through Excel, SQL, and Tableau in depth, as well as constructing effective presentations based on insights from data. The projects are hands on and give you a good understanding of each data tool. I personally have a background in Excel, so that portion of the class was a little slow for me, but the rest of the course really made it worth my time. There is no requirement to have any knowledge of Excel walking into the course, which could be a good thing for some. I think Excel is easy to pick up from tutorials on the internet, so I wish we had spent a little less time learning the fundamentals in Excel and more time on Tableau. Besides that, the teaching was great and they give you whatever help you need. There are a lot of times where the technology is faulty and it disrupts class because the display disconnects, etc. but the teaching in general is very effective. I got a lot out of the course!

Denver General Assembly is a smaller, newish GA campus. I believe they're also one of the highest performing in the country. The learning experience was phenomenal, but the culture and networking was above and beyond what I expected. I made lifelong friends and careerlong contacts during this course. Our instructors were outstanding – genuinely great people who had decades of industry experience and also great teaching skills. We still stay in touch.

Our curriculum was cutting edge, incorporating the latest technology and centuries old, tried and true design theories. Industry professionals were woven into our days for panels and talks. We also spent time building our portfolios, working with real clients, and preparing for the job hunt. I know we learned the latest and greatest because I wowed potential employers at all of my interviews with my portfolio.

I felt like I was really well prepared for my job search. While most of my cohort found jobs within a month, I took a little longer but fell within my estimate of around 3 months. Career coaching was a priority at GA, and our coach was there to provide support above and beyond, introducing us to channels, people, events, reviewing countless resumé updates, and keeping us in line!

HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS COURSE!

I was skeptical when I enrolled in General Assembly's UX Design Bootcamp. It's an expensive, for-profit, unaccredited educational institution. Those characteristics go against everything I'd been told to look for in an educational pursuit. 

As a graduate, I cannot say enough good things about the program, and I am jealous of the cohort currently learning with our phenomenal instructors. The instructors are, without a doubt, the backbone of the course. Our Denver instructors were passionate, supportive, and wealths of knowledge. They not only taught us a tremendous amount but also connected us with the local community and introduced us to awesome organizations. I feel fully prepared entering the world as a *junior* UX designer. I'm eternally grateful to them and the GA staff.

All that being said, this is NOT a job placement program; you absolutely have to hustle to get your first job, and no one can or will do that work for you. Our career counselor gave us all of the tools to position us to be the best possible applicants out there (seriously, I feel like I'm a LinkedIn, Meetup, and applicant tracking system guru), but even so, the job search takes time (it can be many months) and starting salaries can be low. I think this is all completely reasonable, and I'd only ask that GA be very upfront about this truth. 

For me, the course was worth it. I'm happier and more excited about my work and my job than I ever have been, and I'd take the course again in a heartbeat. 

Great course. Got a paid internship / junior role within 2 months of finishing the course with a brilliant agency. The UXDI content is diverse and interesting, teaching staff are very engaged and just good all round people.

I now work in an environment I love with the best people I've ever worked with. Very expensive course but definitely worth it to leave behind a career that leaves you feeling meh.

The careers ('outcomes') team are absolutely brilliant. Just do what they say and be nice / keen and you can get a good gig afterwards.

One of the best things I've ever done. Thank you GA!

The caveats: 

- really, really think twice (thrice?) about doing this if you have very young kids (unless you have full time childcare and/or a partner who doesn't want to see you for 3 solid months). You will work 6 full days a week, and some very late nights, and on day 7 you'll be braindead. This gets good results but can put a big strain on family life. That factor was my only big regret.

- cross your fingers for a good cohort. The people you train with have a big impact on how much you get out of the course

- the market for Juniors is pretty competitive so get ready to roll your sleeves up and be very proactive to get your first role.

- you will learn a lot in a short space of time, and yet not know very much when you come out compared to your colleagues if you work in a good agency. Don't expect to come out a pro. This is just the first step!

I want to start by saying I am only 18. Most of the people I see attend this are in their 20s but don't feel like being younger than everyone will stop you if you are considering coming to GA after high school. 

The course is fast paced and you have to put in the time and effort if you want to succeed. You may not have a whole lot of time during the weeks for the duration of the course so it's really a committment. I think the fast paced is perfect for learning, especially for web development. You need to be able to learn on your own as a developer and the course really encourages you to do that.

I highly recommend GA for Web Development Immersive course for the people that want to do a career change into web development in a short period of time.

I have to say that the best way to do this course is by totally committing to it, giving up most of your weekends to get most out of it.

Joel teacher wast the best teacher I ever had. He had extensive knowledge in this field and was very lucky to have him as an instructor, same with the teacher assistants, they were extra helpful .

Also Lucy was super helpful with helping what to do after GA, and I really thank her for all her effort she put to help us all in having the job we wanted.

Joining GA was one of the best decisions in my life. I could not say anything bad about the whole experience, plus the new campus is great!!!

General Assembly is a great school for expanding your skillset. I was sponsored by my work to take the part-time UX course. I apply things I learned in my UX course at work and in life daily. Taking this course has truly influenced the way I think about design and approach problems. The classes are always interesting. I was never bored in class and I always felt that the material was relevant.

There were two main negatives to taking the part-time course. The first is that you don't receive direct job assistance from General Assembly like the full time course does. The second is that it can feel like there isn't enough class time to do activities or dive deeply into topics. 

That being said, I loved the course and am thankful I had the opportunity to take it!